Nightmare Before Christmas: An Elm Street Story
by Philip Ellwell
Summary: Thirty years of silence is shattered on Christmas eve, as Carol and her sister run into an old nightmare from the past. But, Freddy isn't the only person back from death: Nancy Thompson might be Carol's only hope to survive the night...
1. Chapter 1

The night was pretty dark, and it seemed like every street light was broken. Carol shivered in the cold breeze, and tried to pull her coat collar up higher, but it didn't really help. She hated walking home alone, and the fact she lived on Elm wasn't helping. Walking past that old dump made her about wet herself, and in the dark? So much "No, forget that".

Not that she believed those damn old stories...who would? They were all made up in the 80's to keep kids from making out, more than likely. Even if there was a real killer before that...

Oh, what the hell?

Why was she worrying about this? It was just a bunch of old stories and legends, that didn't matter anymore. She needed to hurry up to get home: it wasn't going to get any lighter, and whether she liked it or not, the old dump was just around the corner. She'd cross to the otherside of the street, but there wasn't a sidewalk there, and she couldn't really get around going past the house, unless she walked in the street.

She'd just decided to forget it, and walk in the road, when a car filled with booming music and yelling teens raced by, doing at least 20 over the limit (also possibly the blood-alcohol level of the car's occupants).

She closed her eyes, and walked quickly past it: The less she had to look at the ruined hulk of 1428, the better.

She opened them when she'd passed by, but glanced back anyway, making the whole exercise pointless. Some sicko, probably Billy Loomis from the high school, had nailed a jaunty red bow to the house's paint peeled door, and a Merry Christmas sign to the rusted bars on the windows of the downstairs.

"This town's full of weirdos." Carol muttered, walking quicker.

Just to be safe.


	2. Chapter 2

The house was completely dark when she slid the backdoor open, the family room pitch black. She fumbled through the darkness, and rammed her knee hard on the table edge, making her grunt. She made it to the kitchen, and felt along the wall for the light switch, finding it, and snapping on the kitchen light. The glare showed a mess of bowls and chocolate sauce on the counter, along with melted icecream puddles, and disintegrating sprinkles. . Carol stared at the mess for a second, then shook her head.

"Damn, Suzie...give me a break.."

She started scrubbing the counter, muttering curses to herself the whole time, not thinking about Suzie still being awake. She didn't hear her soft footsteps, until...

"What's a "dumbass"?" A voice said behind her: Damnit...

Carol looked behind her slowly, to see Suzie standing there, questioning the new word she'd just learned. A word that would NOT go over well with her mother when Suzie spouted it at some inoppurtune time in public. Great, good one Carol.

"Uhm..." Yes, explain this one away, Miss Genius. "It's...a...word adults say sometimes when they're angry..and..you...should never repeat it, okay?"

Suzie nodded, so easily impressed by "It's an adult thing". "Okay...I promise."

Carol mentally patted herself on the back. She was going to be such a good parent someday, if she ever decided it was worth ruing her body for a whining pink thing that screamed for help at 3 am.

"What did you do, anyway? Kill a chocolate rabbit?" Carol held up a encrusted bowl, dripping with ice cream.

"I was tryin' to make a sundae for Santa." Suzie trilled, smiling.

Really.. just really. Carol tried hard to not roll her eyes, and managed not to, until she looked away to scrub at the bowl more. The crap wasn't coming off, and would need to soak. "I thougt he only wanted milk and cookies?"

Suzie looked guilty. "Tommy told me he liked sundae's, so I was makin' one for him, and I made a mess..." It all came out in a rush, and Carol felt sorry for the kid.

"Hey, hey.." Carol knelt, and hugged Suzie. "It's okay, really...I can get it cleaned up, and we'll put out milk and cookies for Santa." She smiled. "Hey...Jack Frost, Rudolph, and Snow Miser are all on tonight. We watchin'?"

She knew that'd win Suzie over. Cartoons always did, more so if they were Christmas related. Suzei would watch her old Christmas VHS's all during the year. It was odd, but as long as it kept her happy.

"You go set it up, I'll put this mess in to soak." Carol stood, giving Suzie a little shove forward into the living room. Suzei toddled off into the living room, and Carol had to smile at the little scream of glee that came from the living room, as the familiar theme tune to Jack Frost began playing from the tv.

It made the task of scrubbing the shit out of the bowl in a futile attempt to clean it vaugely enjoyable, as she scrubbed in time to the music. She hummed, feeling...oddly happy. Which wasn't really an emotion dishwashing usually made you feel...

She left the bowls to soak in soap, and just figured her mother would finish the job in the morning. Suzie was watching the tail end of Rudolph, so she quietly sat next to her. Suzie moved so her head rested on Carol's lap. Surprised, Carol gently stroked Suzie's hair, as Jack Frost began. Her eyes felt heavy: it had been a rough day, with three back to back tests, and hardly any sleep the night before, staying up late to cram... plus the gym meet... mmmm... and the regular gym class, with added basketball game..

"...nippin' at your nose.." The lyrics vaguely made it into her tired brain, as she finally let her eyes droop, still stroking Carol's hair. Just a little nap, maybe.. the special was thirty minutes... long enough.

Her eyes closed.

"...nippin' off your nose..." A voice whispered. Carol only have heard it, as she reached to stroke Suzie's hair again: her hand met empty air.

A loud screeching made her jump, blinking stupidly at her surroundings. Everything seemed the same, except for the movie. The picture had flickered and warped, but from what little was still visible, Jack Frost was murdering the villagers, his fingers long and silver...almost like knives... his clothes red and green now... what?

The movie suddenly came to an end, snow flickering across the screen. Distorted voices echoed from behind the glass, children's voices. Carol got up from the couch, the carpet feeling deeper under her feet, as she knelt before the glass of the lines ran across it, and she touched a finger to it: warm... and thick.

She screamed as hands shot from the screen, scrabbling for her face, fingers dirty and broken, the nails hanging from green and grey flesh.

The carpet squished under her fingers, and she screamed as her hands came away smeared with the ooze. The house was dripping all around her, the slime running down the walls and pictures, the carpet soaking in it. She stumbled to her feet, falling over and over as she tried to make it to the hall, to the door..she had to get outside... to the street..to help...

A hand took hers, a kind, warm, firm hand, that helped her to her feet. A woman she'd never seen before smiled kindly at her, her hazel eyes streaked with laugh lines at the corners, but also seemed haunted, hollow. She'd seen things in her life that had scarred her, and there was no hiding them. Her eyes betrayed her like mirrors reflecting damnation.

A white streak ran up her hair, jagged, like lightning.

"Carol...it's okay." she said, her voice soft, mother-like, "I'll help you get out of here."

"W..where a..am I.? My sister...I...I.." Carol tried, but she broke down into sobs.

The woman gently took Carol's chin in her hand, and gazed into her eyes seriously. "Carol... you and your sister are in great danger here." She smiled, but it was troubled.

"I can help. My name is Nancy, and I...I used to live here."

"W..where?" Carol sobbed, her vision wavering as tears ran down her cheeks.

"Elm Street..." Nancy replied softly.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a clash of thunder, and suddenly Nancy was gone. The room had changed as well, the walls papered in a faded rose pattern, claw marks tearing the paper to shred everywhere. Portraits hung crookedly on the walls, depicting children playing in cemeteries and trash heaps, their skin pale and wasted. Looking at them made Carol shiver.

Rain pounded somewhere, the sound echoing in the stillness of the house, the only movement the slow sway of a light on a chain, as if someone had just brushed past it a second or two before. From somewhere upstairs, a child's giggle sounded, but it was warped and bubbly, as if underwater. Carol looked up the steps, but the hall above simply vansihed into darkness. She didn't want to go up there for any reason, and started back down the hall. It seemed like the hall just looped over and over, and she never got past the stairs.

"Silent night..." She looked up at the voice, as it echoed from the stairwell. It sounded exactly like Suzie, and that made Carol wake up. She stepped onto the first step, and it groaned like a dying soul. Each stair cracked and groaned, and a legless doll stared up from the seventh one, as she finally got to the top. The hall stretched into darkness on both sides, but the singing echoed from the left. She took a breath, and walked along the hall, running a hand over the silky dust of the wallpaper, in case a doorknob should show itself.

"All is not calm...nothing is right..." The singer continued, sounding like it was under thick water, bubbling and wavering. It made Carol shiver.

The hall suddenly opened into a room, and Carol didn't even notice the hall behind had disappeared, and only wall covered it.

The room was very large, and dark. No light came in, but in the gloom, Carol could see a chair in the center, a small figure sitting in it. The singing came from it, and Carol knew it was Suzie.

"Oh,god...Suzie, why are you in here? We've gotta go back home, okay?" She touched the figure's shoulder, and a flickering bulb light up the figure. It WAS Suzie.. once... now

The skin was rotted, and eyes stared sunkenly from withered sockets, the mouth gaping open obscenely, the lips cracked. "Welcome home, Carol.." The corpse wheezed, before bursting into flame, making her cover her eyes, and duck back. Lights flickered on and off, red and green, green and red, over and over. She opened her eyes to the Christmas lights, seeing them flicker on the walls. The room was larger than ever, steam hissing from patched over pipes, water dripping in puddles tinted red by the lights...or was it just really blood? She didn't know anymore.. nothing seemed real here. It was like a nightmare..

"Exactly." A voice rasped from behind her.

She turned to see a man standing there, outlined in the lights, almost posing for her like some demented magazine layout.

"W..who the hell are you supposed to be? Where's my sister?" Her voice echoed in the room, and a steampipe burst, as if her voice had frightened it.

The man chuckled deeply, his voice raspy and harsh, like nails on a chalkboard. He ran his fingers along the wall, and sparks flew, a hight-pitched squeal making her cover her ears. They came away red.

"Maybe your sis is dead. Don't matter much." He chuckled again, and folded his arms like a corpse. "Little baby sissy, dead in a ditchie..." He sing-songed, making her wince. His voice was like smelling rotting garbage, acrid and harsh. It was the vilest thing she'd ever heard.

He took a step into the light, and she gasped at seeing his scarred flesh, the burns tearing through the skin like razors, the flesh rotted sick yellows and angry reds, the hair burned away, the ears melted to the skull. He grinned, showing rotted teeth as crooked and blackened as gravestones.

She didn't even know when she'd started running, only that she had, racing among pipes and dripping walls, toys littering the floor in melted heaps, skulls grinning toothily from corners. The labyrinth of pipes never seemed to end, and as she ran, the old stories came rushing back to her. Every single Girl Scouts campfire, every dark sleepover, every jokey tale whispered in the halls at school.. all of it. The Springwood Slasher, the killer of over 15 kids. The killer who returned in dreams to slaughter a whole new generation of kids on Elm street, mass suicides and killings temporaily killing off every child in the whole town.

But those were stories... all of it made up to scare the kids, the suicides all proved to be mass hysteria, and drug related deaths. All in bed... all in bed. every one in bed, near a bed, while asleep...

She tripped, thudding hard on the damp concrete. She felt blood burst in the back of her throat, and swallowed thickly, hearing harsh footsteps getting closer.

"What's wrong, Carol? This your first time?" A chuckle. "I'll go easy on you...you'll only bleed a lot."

No, no..she wouldn't die in a damn damp boiler room, with a late 80's ghost story at the helm. She stumbled, steadying herself on a pipe, and stifling a scream, as her flesh burned and turned an angry red, boiling from the heated steam of the pipe. She took off again, wishing it was over... she'd fallen asleep hundreds of times, and this had never happened. Was it because she'd gone past the house, refused to look at it? Or..or had the time of year done it somehow? Unlocked a door never meant to be opened, and let something out into the world?

Steps appeared before her, leading up, and she stumbled along them without thinking, her hand bleeding as the raw skin tore on the banister, her feet aching. But she couldn't stop, couldn't stop for a moment. Stopping meant death.

"Carol...Carol.." A soft voice whispered to her, and a door opened. The woman from before... the soft-handed lady...

"Help me..p..please..h..he.." Carol tried, falling on her face in the dank carpet. The woman helped her up, and half carried, half aided her into the room, a rotted nursery with a crib of bones and shattered dolls. The woman set her down on a small stool, rubbing her back. "Carol...listen to me." She gently stroked Carol's hair, humming softly. She spoke after Carol seemed to have calmed slightly. "You're going to make it out of here. I'm not letting him hurt anyone any more... the Gate won't be opened any more."

"G..gate?" Carol asked weakly, trying to keep up.

The woman smiled, and shook her head. "Don't worry about it..it doesn't concern you, dear." She hummed a soft lullaby, and Carol felt her eyes closing.

"My name is Nancy.." The woman whispered in her ear, "I protect the Gate. The Gate of Good Dreams. The man..you've seen in the house..guards the Gate of Bad. He's escaped again..for the first time in a long time. I can stop him..and get you home."

"S..suzie.." Carol sat up with a small shriek of fear. "Suzie!"

"She's home...I promise you. I got her back, woke her up." Nancy soothed, helping Carol to her feet. "But you're not safe here...this is his home. He knows I've found.."

Nancy screamed, her head back on a loose neck like a ragdolls. Freddy Krueger laughed, and kissed Nancy's cheek, his arm thrusted up through her.

"Not this time..." He twisted his arm, making her whimper. "Why..won't..you..stay..dead?!" Each word was punctauted by a thrust, and finally, Nancy's eyes closed for good. She seemed to explode into golden dust, as Freddy licked his fingers..no..not fingers. Knives...roughly shoved through a garden glove, coated in ancient rust..or was it blood? He grinned at her, and waggled his tounge. "Woman's been a pain since the 80's."

Carol's eye twitched, and the scream she'd been holding in let go, as she took off into the boiler room again, another scream ripping through her as she tore her leg on a knive stuck through a L-bend, blood dripping down her leg, leaving a trail. Freddy could find her easily, and she'd be done for.

"One, two..." His voice echoed from the pipes around her, the room seeming to go on again. She never gave thought to the layout of the house: it was obvious this place had no real boundries, not here in the nightmare world.

The next turn made it a bathroom, and she slowed, breath hitching in her throat as she rested for just a second against counter. The tub gurgled behind her, filled with tepid red liquid, a skeleton arm hanging over the edge. She looked at this, and blinked: Freddy was just doing funhouse garbage right now. The tub drained at this point, and was clear and clean.

Carol walked calmly out of the bathroom, the halls changing around her. Freddy had dug deep, and she shuddered slightly as a door nearby shook, green light flickering around the edges, a moan coming from behind it. She knew this well..the Haunted Mansion. Freddy had gone back to childhood, rumaged for old fears mostly forgotten.

But childhood's fears are the worst.

She started running, and the hall seemed to go on forever, the end never getting closer. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and the old scares went on and on. Arms lunged for her, portraits watched her go by, screams echoed, coffins rattled..

There was no hope or aid, just the hall.

"C..carol. Carol.." A voice said near her, but she kept on, trying to out run it, trying to escape.

She ran right into Nancy, not even seeing her. She just popped into being out of thin air. A loud scream echoed through the hall, and Carol shivered.

Nancy smiled gently, and took Carol's hand, pulling her to her feet. "Don't be scared by this...he's reaching back far this time. It's just childhood fears.."

Carol wobbled, but nodded. "I..I was terrified of this ride as a child...I cried the whole time." She confessed, as Nancy patted her shoulder gently. "It's okay..everyone's afraid of something as a child."

The hall had grown dimmer and dimmer as they talked, and finally faded to nothing, only a dim floor beneath their feet.

"What do we do now?" Carol said softly, holding Nancy's hand.

Nancy's face was worried, as she looked ahead. "We run...NOW!"

She took off, and Carol heard a rushing noise, as the walls melted into garish Christmas colours, slime and rust smeared all over, like a mall Santa Cove from Hell. Bells rang, and a broken record repeated a line of Silent Night over and over, everything moving far too fast, everything a whirl-wind of nightmares.

Nancy pulled her along the rooms, past skeletal trees, and lunging elves with dead eyes, the rooms blending until they finally reached a central area, circular, dressed to the nines in Christmas garb.

"What is this?" Carol whispered, looking around the room. The whole place was literally too spic and span, cartoonishly Christmas, perfect and...frightning in a way. Everything was too perfect, too well planned, too picture-postcard. Something was wrong..

"Slay bells ring, are ya listenin'?" Freddy croaked, stepping into the light. The room dimmed around them, as Nancy stepped forward, staring Freddy down.

"Krueger.." She said softly, looking him in his wasted eyes. He grinned back at her, exposing crooked teeth as mossy and broken as so many skulls in a tomb. "Nancy."

Nancy flinched, but stood her ground, watching Krueger's every move, as the scarred man clenched a fist, and lashed with his claws. They struck Nancy, and left a gash, but Nancy grabbed his arm, pulling it to her. "Run Carol! Wake up! Wake up!"

She screamed, and pulled back with everything in her, pulling the arm off, as Freddy tackled Nancy. Carol fell back into the wall, feeling it tear, screams and cries echoing from a fiery pit behind the faux wall. She tettered on the edge, her arms waving in attempt to gain ballance, but she fell, screaming, into the pit.

The last thing she saw was Nancy smiling, as Freddy crawled away..

Carol sat up with a loud scream, Suzie screaming to as she was woken up. They both fell off the couch to the floor in a heap, and Carol watched the tv flicker with snow-static, only for a second Nancy staring back.

A feeling something had just started over whelmed her, as she held Suzie closely in the dawn light, Christmas ending, and a nightmare just beginning for Elm Street.


End file.
